Letter on the Annual Meeting from Joseph Farrell

Presidential Letters

Submitted by Helen Cullyer on Monday, January 15, 2018 - 8:41am

January 15, 2018

Dear Members,

Looking back on the recently concluded Annual Meeting, I’m of two minds. For those who took part, I think it was a big success. Newer-format events, like Career Networking and Ancient Maker Spaces, were really lively and well attended, especially by younger members. Georgia Nugent’s presidential panel on the PhD as a launching pad for careers other than college teaching was really inspiring. And the Program Committee’s special session on “Rhetoric: Then and Now” brought our professional responsibility to be political into the spotlight in a way that I feel was both fruitful and long overdue.

The success of these events is all the more impressive because every one of them underwent major changes at the last minute when key participants simply could not make it to Boston because of the weather. Amazingly few sessions were actually cancelled. But if you couldn’t get to Boston, it wasn’t a good convention for you. I’m very sorry for those whose travel plans were thwarted, and I’m extremely grateful to all those got there in spite of the extra effort, expense, and delay that it cost. Frankly, your success in doing so probably saved the convention from being a total disaster.

(Speaking of expense, Helen Cullyer and her staff are working with those who couldn’t get in to mitigate their financial exposure. Everyone affected has now received instructions on requesting refunds.)

Since this is the second Annual Meeting in four years to suffer the impact of extreme winter weather, many members are asking why we continue to meet in early January and in cities like Boston and Chicago. The question is important, and we have to take it seriously. Two events like this in just four years could be coincidental, but in view of all of the other extreme weather events in recent years, you would have to be a climate-change denier to think that this won’t happen again. So the issue is now top priority for the SCS Board of Directors, and I was happy to learn that Jodi Magness, the President of the AIA, is more than willing to work with us.

That said, just what to do is not obvious. Many members already wonder why we don’t meet more often in warm-weather cities, but even at this time of year we do not have our pick of venues; far from it. Next year, at least, we do have San Diego, and we can look forward to celebrating the Society’s Sesquicentennial in a warm climate. Still, another badly timed storm on the east coast or in the midwest might prevent many of us from arriving in time for the start of the conference. So, in addition to the question of where we meet, we also have to raise the question of when.

We have already signed contracts through 2024, and the time to identify venues for the years beyond that — while they are still available — is now. If we moved to a new time of year in 2025, we would have to avoid conflicts with CAMWS, CAAS, and the other Classical organizations, as well as with CAA, AAR-SBL, and other conventions that our members attend. Holidays and teaching schedules also come into play. It would not be easy. These are the reasons why we meet when we do, in the first place, and it is not impossible that we will continue to do so, although something has to be done to mitigate the risk of another Bomb Cyclone or Polar Vortex. Disruptions like that are bad for our members — especially younger members, those with families, those who have no access to research and travel funds, and so on — and they threaten the Society’s financial health while taxing our professional staff, who worked heroically to keep the most recent convention on track, and who are still dealing with a vastly more complicated aftermath than they expected. Thanks to them, as well as to all of you who made it to Boston in spite of everything, the convention was, against the odds, a success, intellectually and socially. And I promise that we will do everything possible to ensure that future events will be even more successful, and that the risk of weather-related disruption will be as small as possible.

Members are invited to serve as volunteers at the 144th Annual Meeting of the Association in Seattle, WA this coming January. Assignments include assistance in the Registration Area, monitoring session rooms, and supporting the Placement Service. Interested members should contact Heather Gasda in the Association Office by October 1, 2012. The Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee will develop a schedule of volunteer activity in late Fall.

In exchange for eight hours of service (either in one continuous or in two 4-hour assignments), volunteers receive a waiver of their annual meeting registration fees. It is not necessary to be an APA member to volunteer.

In April I briefed members on behalf of the Board about the funding threat to the German office of L'Année and promised to update members when we had further news (http://apaclassics.org/index.php/apa_blog/apa_blog_entry/3325/). I am delighted to pass along the following letter of 11 August 2012 from SIBC President Margarethe Billerbeck:

Jeff Henderson

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I can inform you that the German Arbeitsstelle of L’Année Philologique can continue after the end of the current year. Professor Martin Hose has successfully negotiated the transfer of the present Arbeitsstelle from Heidelberg to the University of Munich which is prepared to finance and house the new équipe. This will include a full-time collaborator, a part-time collaborator as well as two assistants (‘Hilfskräfte’). The present guarantee is for three years with the possibility of renewal. At a time when public finances are severely strained this is an excellent outcome of what seemed an almost hopeless situation. We will have an occasion to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Hose for his untiring effort to convince the authorities of his University to accept this charge when he joins us at the Annual Meeting of the SIBC in Paris in November.

In August all APA members in good standing for 2012 will receive instructions for voting in the 2012 election from Vote-Now, the firm we have retained to conduct this election. Members for whom we have a valid e-mail address will receive their instructions via e-mail; all others will receive instructions via first-class mail. Regardless of the method of notification, all members will once again have the option to vote online or to use a paper ballot. The deadline for receipt of paper ballots will be the close of business on Friday, September 28, 2012. Online balloting will close at 3:00 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, October 1, 2012.

The online ballot will contain links to the biographical sketches and election statements of individual candidates. In addition, several documents relevant to the election are posted here:

IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca (www.imtlucca.it) is accepting applications, from extremely motivated students oriented towards dynamic and highly applicative research opportunities, for fully-funded Ph.D. positions in its 2013 Doctoral Research Program within the “Management and Development of Cultural Heritage” track.

The track in Management and Development of Cultural Heritage, in close collaboration with the LYNX - Center for the interdisciplinary Analysis of Images Research Unit (http://lynx.imtlucca.it/), aims at providing prospective professionals operating in the field of management of culture and cultural heritage with specific know-hows. It also promotes research offering the students a lively contact with different research approaches and methodologies applied in the research fields related to cultural heritage and art history.

Each student is invited to construct a personal study plan with Advisor, drawing from entire range of course offerings to best suit his or her background and research interests.

Ancient Greek will resound in full Pindaric style at the welcome gala for the International Olympic Committee on Monday July 23.

An Olympic Ode, composed by an Oxford University academic, will be read in ancient Greek by London Mayor Boris Johnson.

"I have no doubt that the members of the International Olympic Committee are fully versed in ancient Greek, but to ensure the elaborate puns can be fully appreciated, I shall have the pleasure of vocalizing the Ode twice, once in Greek and then again in English," Johnson, who studied classics at Oxford University, said.

The automated system for the 2012-2013 APA/AIA Placement Service is now open and accepting registrations by candidates, subscribers, and institutions. As was the case last year, registrants will need to create an account at placement.apaclassics.org and then purchase the service(s) they wish. Registrants who used the Service last year may (but are not required to) adopt the same username and password as before; however, they will still need to create a new account. Detailed instructions for registering for the service and then taking advantage of its features are available at the Placement web site.